Meditations, Observations, and Awareness of Social Behavior explained in everyday language.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Attention and Obedience#6

See it like this--you're a youth setting in a classroom, looking out the window or in a business meeting daydreaming, and the speaker or teacher has asked you a question you didn't hear. Oh, no! You stumble and in disappointment they ask that you "pay attention" or "keep your focus". First, is focus merely based on importance? Is what someone says focus? Are we "paying attention" when listening to anything or partaking in a task of some sort? Is that attention? Are we alert in that moment? Do we see ourselves in that moment? Are we not limited if asked to focus on something and keep it there? This to me is obedience--to be guided by a form of authority (intended for conflict or not) to focus on their vision of importance is a conditioned obedience. Don't we go to auditoriums to listen to a single person speak on the importance of this or that? We all have gone somewhere to perform this social tradition. Still, the question is if this is obedience, surely we see that it is, no matter why we go or don't, it's still a cultural tradition. We are obedient to the act. Hopefully this statement doesn't hurt your ego--we generally don't like what we don't see or agree with within ourselves. Again, if we are obedient are we at attention? No, the two are contradictions--"obedience" limits and "attention" knows no bounds. Do we see this? Obedience asks us to limit our energy and vitality in order to bring it to a point of social focus. It takes energy and force to focus for a length of time. We're asked to focus for the duration of some social task and this is supposed to be for our benefit, personally or socially. "Pay attention" is what we hear, but this is not happening, this is obedience, clearly. Do you ever wonder why we seemingly lose energy as we grow and mature? Why? In part, because we've been asked to focus our attention on education, knowledge, tradition, study, church, work etc. It goes on and on. To focus is to limit energy, like its passing through a funnel, if you will. Only a curtain amount of water flows through as its capacity/energy is lost or backing up on itself, which for us causes us to slow and tire as we mature as energy is wasted. Yet children aren't like that--could it be that they're still experiencing the full expression of energy, vitality and attention because obedience has yet to take hold? Is that why they're so hard to control or make obedient, like we've become? Notice--you have to give an adult and idea/pleasure to get them to "be energetic" and moving again, but not with children because they're at attention all the time, taking-in the surroundings. There is a true nature of "attention"--unforced and alive, not dead like obedience.